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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175700">you of all people know that freedom doesn’t come for free</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fernfuneral/pseuds/fernfuneral'>fernfuneral</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>though it feels like we were built from the same dirt [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Not Really Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, ghostbur-typical memory loss, it’s not nearly as comforting as it should be, no beta we die like wilbur, wilbur and tubbo talk about things</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:14:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fernfuneral/pseuds/fernfuneral</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wilbur found him as he sat alone, legs hanging off of the side of his podium. Dusk had long since fallen, and the air was thick with the onset of a rain. Eventually, a storm would hit.”</p><p>or,</p><p>tubbo and ghostbur talk. tubbo has never missed who he used to be more. (can be read as a stand-alone)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>though it feels like we were built from the same dirt [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064120</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you of all people know that freedom doesn’t come for free</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>once again, some warnings going into it! theyre not as intense as the last one, but there is some suicidal ideation and also heavy memory fuckery on ghostbur’s part. but yeah</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wilbur found him as he sat alone, legs hanging off of the side of his podium. Dusk had long since fallen, and the air was thick with the onset of a rain. Eventually, a storm would hit. As the ghost approached, Tubbo’s legs were swinging, feet kicking through the air in a slow arc, and he squeezed his hands around the wood of the barrier like it was a lifeline. The water below him shone in the moonlight, rippling with a soft gust of wind; when Tubbo looked at Wilbur he looked almost alive. </p><p>They locked gazes for a moment and Tubbo took in Wilbur’s lazy smile, the way his eyes shone. It was a bad day, then. When the spirit’s past was hidden from him, shrouded in a fog that made him sluggish, childish. His hands were curled around a piece of his blue possessively, gripping it just tight enough to show in the strain on his fingers. His feet were just barely sliding on the wood in a way that, had Tubbo not known Wilbur to be dead, would have immediately keyed him in to the fact that something was inherently unnatural about him. He looked, for all intents and purposes, as close to alive as he could get, beyond the hollow light of his eyes.</p><p>“Lovely night, isn’t it?” His voice was thin. A shout from the end of a train tunnel.</p><p>Tubbo couldn’t look at Wilbur any longer. Something about the slope of his nose, the shape of his eyes. It was all too similar to Tommy, and suddenly the low burn of anger gripped his tongue. It was a different kind of rage than he was used to feeling. Something softer, dripping with the saltwater tang of grief.</p><p>He hummed in response, a single flat note. </p><p>Wilbur stood silently behind him, saying as nothing as Tubbo turned back to look at the sky. Tubbo assumed the other had walked away, almost let the tension in his shoulders drop; before a rustle sounded from behind him and Wilbur climbed onto the barrier. He was close enough that Tubbo could feel the distinct absence of his warmth.</p><p>He had always used to run hot. </p><p>The air was tense between them, words left unspoken that sat thick in the night’s chill. Tubbo could hear the soft shift of Wilbur’s clothes as he sat, restless against the quiet. He knew the older had something he wanted to say, that the only thing keeping him back was apprehension. It was evident, in his idle motion, in the way he held the dye in his hands, fingers lightly tapping where they cradled it. Tubbo didn’t want to talk to him. Didn’t want to talk to anyone.</p><p>(Except for Tommy. Always Tommy.)</p><p>“What do you want, Wilbur?” The words shattered as he spoke them, tumbling from a throat rough with the grain of disuse. It grated on his ears, scraped with ash and debris and all he could think about was the crater he stumbled into, chest heaving, just hours before.</p><p>“I—“ Wilbur caught himself short, and his voice dissipated into the air like mist in the sun, like a dusting of snow on the first morning of spring. “You looked sad, sitting alone.”</p><p>Tubbo’s chest ached. He missed Tommy, then, like he’d miss a limb. Missed him, even though he shouldn’t, even though he’d caused his death. More than that, the smolder of anger that stained his tongue—sitting underneath it like a snake in the grass—rose to strike. How was it fair that after everything, Wilbur was the one who got to stay?</p><p>He couldn’t say that though. Wilbur wouldn’t understand, not truly. He wasn’t himself, hadn’t been himself since long before he died. Tubbo turned Wilbur’s words around in his brain, trying to collect his thoughts enough for an adequate enough response.</p><p>“Maybe I wanted to be by myself.” He’s quiet, when he says it. Barely audible in the buzz of the night, insects and creatures of the dark singing a soft ambiance. </p><p>Wilbur sighs lightly. “I don’t know, you feel lonely.”</p><p>His eyes flick to look at the other man, who has his eyes fixed on the star-speckled sky, and an ugly feeling rears its head in his gut. It’s thick, visceral. Tubbo can feel it overwhelming him, and knows the next words out of his mouth will be coated with venomous anger before he even thinks them.</p><p>“And what makes you think I’d be any less lonely speaking to <em>you</em>?”</p><p>Tubbo watches his words land, eyes catching on how Wilbur’s hands tighten around his dye, shoulders tensing, and a small, sick part of him wants to revel in the reaction he caused. Mostly, though, he just regrets them as soon as he speaks. Wilbur isn’t the subject of his rage. He doesn’t deserve to have it directed at him.</p><p>(<em>And who does?</em> A voice in his head whispers, dark and serious. <em>You know who you’re truly angry with.</em>)</p><p>“Tubbo—“ Wilbur stops again, purses his lips as he thinks about what he’s going to say. “I don’t— I’m not the man I was. You know that.”</p><p>And he does. He knows that because he knows Wilbur. And he knows that his ghost, as much as he was a part of who Wilbur had been, could never be the man he used to be. But that didn’t quell the fury that sat deep in his chest, that crushed and curled around his heart. The wrath that had only increased with the bone-deep sting from the still-fresh gash of Tommy’s death. A part of him <em>hated</em>Wilbur, at that moment. Hated him so entirely that it terrified him. Because Wilbur had the luxury of forgetting. The absolution of innocence.</p><p>And, really, Tubbo wanted to hurt Wilbur as he had been hurt. Wanted him to feel the ache of being forced to grow up too fast, of being coerced to die in the name of a revolution that had never cared for him as much as he cared for it. Wilbur, in his death, got the gift of watching the fruits he sowed bloom. Tubbo, in his life, had to watch as that harvest rotted on his plate.</p><p>“And I’m not the kid you brought to war.” The sentence was halting on his lips, saturated with the anger and exhaustion that was consuming him.</p><p>The ghost opened his mouth, but Tubbo cut him off, eyes burning as he stared straight ahead. His voice was steel. “I died for your revolution, Wilbur. And you may not be the same man, but I was a child.”</p><p>The silence between them was paper-thin, and eager to shatter, to fall to pieces as fragile things were wont to do.</p><p>“I still am.” It was a whisper. A breath in the wind. A confession to both of them.</p><p>Wilbur shifted, something nervous in his frame. As if part of him had him tethered to the plank of wood he was perched on while the rest of him wanted nothing more than to leave. Tubbo couldn’t blame him, not when he was feeling the same way. He contemplated himself for a moment, feeling around the tangled mass of emotions seated dark and steady within his ribs. How he had fallen from grace, the righteous revolutionary to the beaten and broken president. The seat of a leader was no place for him, he knew this now. </p><p>Perhaps once, he had been bright-eyed and innocent enough to believe himself enough to change L’Manburg for the better. But he was so <em>tired</em>. And you cannot fix something that was never meant to be anything but broken.</p><p>“So you can continue as you are, ignoring your past because you’re too scared of— of confronting yourself, but I won’t pretend to be alright. I have <em>nothing</em> left other than L’manburg, and I can see it falling apart in front of me.” A laugh tore itself from his throat, bitter and rough, and he almost couldn’t recognize himself. “They think I don’t notice them leaving, dedicating themselves to their revenge or anything else, but I do. I listen to them, no matter how little they listen to me.”</p><p>Tubbo looked to his fingers where they were holding the wood, and he slowly uncurled them, turning his hands over to gaze at his palms. They were still raw, the crescent-shaped cuts on the meat of his hands from Tommy’s deathbed were barely scabbed over. An unknown ache bubbled in his throat, choking his airway.</p><p>“Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Tommy’s book, out of yours, and leave this all behind.” His eyes flicked to Wilbur, who was watching him with wide eyes, the raw grief of a man unshielded by the wear of time soaking his face. “Tell me, Wilbur, do you think that my funeral would be gilded?”</p><p>When Wilbur responded, his voice scraped on Tubbo’s ears, and it was an avalanche on a mountain miles away. “Tommy is—“</p><p>He fell to silence, brow furrowed. “But he isn’t.”</p><p>Of course. Of course he’d focus on Tommy, out of all that Tubbo said. He was foolish to be surprised that he was still being looked over. Maybe if he was a more jealous man he’d be bitter about being overshadowed by Tommy, but he couldn’t bring himself to upset. It wasn’t Tommy’s fault. </p><p>“He is.” Two words. Simple, but heavy with the weight of something Tubbo had been avoiding.</p><p>Wilbur shook his head, disbelief on his face. “No— I just saw him, he isn’t dead, it isn’t—”</p><p>The ghost looked at Tubbo, eyes imploring as they met his. “You have to believe me, Tubbo, he isn’t dead.”</p><p>And Tubbo was exhausted. He scrubbed at his eyes with his scraped hands, running them down his face as he offered Wilbur a porcelain smile even when it felt like he was being thrown off-balance again. The grief held his heart in a vice-grip and smoldered. “It’s a bad day, I know. It’s okay Wilbur, I understand.”</p><p>“No— you don’t, I’m not—” Wilbur’s hands were tight around the dye. His form flickered, and it felt a bit as if Tubbo was looking directly at the sun. The other man’s skin was pale, immaterial as spider silk and yet as solid as it was in life, shining in the moonlight. His face was creased in concentration, brow furrowed, and as Tubbo watched, the conjuration fizzled again. Wilbur was trying to remember something, he realized. His voice was cottonwood in summer, the last leaf of autumn hitting the ground. “That’s not right…”</p><p>A minute passed in silence, the only noise beyond the movements of the night the soft whisper that seemed to follow Wilbur in his afterlife, an eternal static to his spirit. Finally, slowly, the confusion dropped from Wilbur’s expression, and when he looked at Tubbo once more, his eyes were half-lidded, a soft smile adorning his face. He was vacant, empty. The fog had consumed him, and some not insignificant bit of Tubbo was alight with envy.</p><p>“Oh!” His voice sung with the hum of a grey morning’s sunlight. “Tubbo! I didn’t see you there.”</p><p>And Wilbur had forgotten once more. Tubbo smiled back at him, masking his emotions even as the grief strangling his heart increased tenfold. “It’s alright. I know it’s hard, sometimes.”</p><p>Wilbur nodded, absently, and his fingers loosened from their chokehold on the piece of blue he held. The man lifted his head, breathing deeply in the night’s chill, before tipping his head towards Tubbo again. </p><p>Meeting his eyes, Tubbo wished desperately that he could still be the person he was when he could follow Wilbur blindly. Seeing the desperate innocence in the ghost’s eyes, the way he was grappling with all of strength to hold onto himself, it stung. Perhaps he hated who Wilbur had become, corrupted by the glory of destruction, but he knew more than ever that he wouldn’t wish this upon anyone. The constant fight against the torrential pull of oblivion was chewing Wilbur to pieces.</p><p>The man beside him shifted uncomfortably where he sat, set on edge by the intense burn of Tubbo’s eyes on him. He watched as Wilbur grasped for some thread of conversation. Something, anything, to break the silence. His smile and voice were soft with the buzz of a bee’s wings in the light of midday, eyes as detached as the float of dandelion fluff on the breath of a child. “Lovely night, isn’t it?”</p><p>Tubbo ducked his head. Choked down the rage, the melancholy, and tried his best to push as much as whatever love he had left for the remnants of his older brother into the upturn of his lips. </p><p>“Yeah, Wilbur, you’re right.” Perhaps it was easier. To pretend. “It is a lovely night.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope you enjoyed it! my head is so full and this series has fully moved into canon divergence now because im an impatient bitch who won’t wait for canon to catch up to my brain. </p><p>title from “9:37 pm” by blegh</p></blockquote></div></div>
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